Dear Sir,

I cannot wonder that an active mind like yours should experience no small degree of tedium in a situation so far removed, as you represent your new residence to be, from "the busy hum of men." Nothing certainly can compensate for the want of agreeable society; but since your case in this respect admits of no remedy but patience, I am glad you are desirous of turning your attention to some pursuit which may amuse you in the intervals of severer study, and in part supply the void of which you complain. I am not a little flattered that you wish to be informed which class in the three kingdoms of nature is, in my opinion, most likely to answer your purpose; at the same time intimating that you feel inclined to give the preference to Entomology, provided some objections can be satisfactorily obviated, which you have been accustomed to regard as urged with a considerable semblance of reason against the cultivation of that science.

Mankind in general, not excepting even philosophers, are prone to magnify, often beyond its just merit, the science or pursuit to which they have addicted themselves, and to depreciate any that seems to stand in competition with their favourite: like the redoubted champions of romance, each thinks himself bound to take the field against every one that will not subscribe to the peerless beauty and accomplishments of his own Dulcinea. In such conflict for pre-eminence I know no science that, in this country, has come off worse than Entomology: her champions hitherto have been so few, and their efforts so unavailing, that all her rival sisters have been exalted above her: and I believe there is scarcely any branch of Natural History that has had fewer British admirers. While Botany boasts of myriads, she, though not her inferior either in beauty, symmetry, or grace, has received the homage of a very slender train indeed. Since therefore the merits of Entomology have been so little acknowledged, you will not deem it invidious if I advocate the cause of this distressed damsel, and endeavour to effect her restoration to her just rights, privileges, and rank.

Things that are universally obvious and easy of examination, as they are the first that fall under our notice, so are they also most commonly those which we first feel an inclination to study; while, on the contrary, things that must be sought for in order to be seen, and which when sought for avoid the approach and inquiring eye of man, are often the last to which he directs his attention. The vegetable kingdom stands in the former predicament. Flora with a liberal hand has scattered around us her charming productions; they every where meet and allure us, enchanting us by their beauty, regaling us by their fragrance, and interesting us as much by their subservience to our luxuries and comfort, as to the necessary support and well-being of our life. Beasts, birds, and fishes also, in some one or other of these respects, attract our notice; but insects, unfortunate insects, are so far from attracting us, that we are accustomed to abhor them from our childhood. The first knowledge that we get of them is as tormentors; they are usually pointed out to us by those about us as ugly, filthy, and noxious creatures; and the whole insect world, butterflies perhaps and some few others excepted, are devoted by one universal ban to proscription and execration, as fit only to be trodden under our feet and crushed: so that often, before we can persuade ourselves to study them, we have to remove from our minds prejudices deeply rooted and of long standing.

Another principal reason which has contributed to keep Entomology in the back ground arises from the diminutive size of the objects of which it treats. Being amongst the most minute of nature's productions, they do not so readily catch the eye of the observer; and when they do, mankind in general are so apt to estimate the worth and importance of things by their bulk, that because we usually measure them by the duodecimals of an inch instead of by the foot or by the yard, insects are deemed too insignificant parts of the creation, and of too little consequence to its general welfare, to render them worthy of any serious attention or study. What small foundation there is for such prejudices and misconception, I shall endeavour to show in the course of our future correspondence; my object now, as the champion and advocate of Entomology, is to point out to you her comparative advantages, and to remove the veil which has hitherto concealed those attractions, and that grace and beauty, which entitle her to equal admiration at least with her sister branches of Natural History.

In estimating the comparative value of the study of any department in this branch of science, we ought to contrast it with others, as to the rank its objects hold in the scale of being; the amusement and instruction which the student may derive from it; and its utility to society at large. With respect to public utility, the study of each of the three kingdoms may perhaps be allowed to stand upon nearly an equal footing; I shall not, therefore, enter upon that subject till I come to consider the question Cui bono? and to point out the uses of Entomology, but confine myself now to the two first of these circumstances.

As to rank, I must claim for the entomologist some degree of precedence before the mineralogist and the botanist. The mineral kingdom, whose objects are neither organized nor sentient, stands certainly at the foot of the scale. Next above this is the vegetable, whose lovely tribes, though not endued with sensation, are organized. In the last and highest place ranks the animal world, consisting of beings that are both organized and sentient. To this scale of precedence the great modern luminary of Natural History, notwithstanding that Botany was always his favourite pursuit, has given his sanction, acknowledging in the preface to his Fauna Suecica, that although the vegetable kingdom is nobler than the mineral, yet the animal is more excellent than the vegetable. Now it is an indisputable axiom, I should think, that the more exalted the object the more excellent the study. By this observation, however, I would by no means be thought to depreciate or discountenance the study either of plants or minerals. All the works of our Creator are great, and worthy of our attention and investigation, the lowest in the scale as well as the highest, the most minute and feeble, as well as those that exceed in magnitude and might. Nor ought those whose inclination or genius leads them to one department, to say to those who prefer another—"we have no need of you"—for each in his place, by diffusing the knowledge of his works and adding to the stock of previous discoveries, contributes to promote the glory of the Great Architect of the universe and the good of his creatures.

It is not my wish to claim for my favourite science more than of right belongs to her; therefore, when the question is concerning rank, I must concede to the higher orders of animals, I mean Fishes, Amphibia, Birds, and Quadrupeds, their due priority and precedence. I shall only observe here, that there may exist circumstances which countervail rank, and tend to render the study of a lower order of beings more desirable than that of a higher: when, for instance, the objects of the higher study are not to be come at or preserved without great difficulty and expense; when they are few in number; or, when they are already well ascertained and known: circumstances which attach to the study of those animals that precede insects, while they do not attach to the study of insects themselves.

With regard to the amusement and instruction of the student, much doubtless may be derived from any one of the sciences alluded to: but Entomology certainly is not behind any of her sisters in these respects; and if you are fond of novelty, and anxious to make new discoveries, she will open to you a more ample field for these than either Botany or the higher branches of Zoology.

A new vertebrate animal or plant is seldom to be met with even by those who have leisure and opportunity for extensive researches; but if you collect insects, you will find, however limited the manor upon which you can pursue your game, that your efforts are often rewarded by the capture of some non-descript or rarity at present not possessed by other entomologists, for I have seldom seen a cabinet so meagre as not to possess some unique specimen. Nay, though you may have searched every spot in your neighbourhood this year, turned over every stone, shaken every bush or tree, and fished every pool, you will not have exhausted its insect productions. Do the same another and another, and new treasures will still continue to enrich your cabinet. If you leave your own vicinity for an entomological excursion, your prospects of success are still further increased; and even if confined in bad weather to your inn, the windows of your apartment, as I have often experienced, will add to your stock. If a sudden shower obliges you at any time to seek shelter under a tree, your attention will be attracted, and the tedium of your station relieved, where the botanist could not hope to find even a new lichen or moss, by the appearance of several insects, driven there perhaps by the same cause as yourself, that you have not observed before. Should you, as I trust you will, feel a desire to attend to the manners and economy of insects, and become ambitious of making discoveries in this part of entomological science, I can assure you, from long experience, that you will here find an inexhaustible fund of novelty. For more than twenty years my attention has been directed to them, and during most of my summer walks my eyes have been employed in observing their ways; yet I can say with truth, that so far from having exhausted the subject, within the last six months I have witnessed more interesting facts respecting their history than in many preceding years. To follow only the insects that frequent your own garden, from their first to their last state, and to trace all their proceedings, would supply an interesting amusement for the remainder of your life, and at its close you would leave much to be done by your successor; for where we know thoroughly the history of one insect, there are hundreds concerning which we have ascertained little besides the bare fact of their existence.

But numerous other sources of pleasure and information will open themselves to you, not inferior to what any other science can furnish, when you enter more deeply into the study. Insects, indeed, appear to have been nature's favourite productions, in which, to manifest her power and skill, she has combined and concentrated almost all that is either beautiful and graceful, interesting and alluring, or curious and singular, in every other class and order of her children. To these, her valued miniatures, she has given the most delicate touch and highest finish of her pencil. Numbers she has armed with glittering mail, which reflects a lustre like that of burnished metals[4]; in others she lights up the dazzling radiance of polished gems[5]. Some she has decked with what looks like liquid drops, or plates of gold and silver[6]; or with scales or pile, which mimic the colour and emit the ray of the same precious metals[7]. Some exhibit a rude exterior, like stones in their native state[8], while others represent their smooth and shining face after they have been submitted to the tool of the polisher: others, again, like so many pygmy Atlases bearing on their backs a microcosm, by the rugged and various elevations and depressions of their tuberculated crust, present to the eye of the beholder no unapt imitation of the unequal surface of the earth, now horrid with mis-shapen rocks, ridges, and precipices—now swelling into hills and mountains, and now sinking into valleys, glens, and caves[9]; while not a few are covered with branching spines, which fancy may form into a forest of trees[10].

What numbers vie with the charming offspring of Flora in various beauties! some in the delicacy and variety of their colours, colours not like those of flowers evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, surviving their subject, and adorning it as much after death as they did when it was alive; others, again, in the veining and texture of their wings; and others in the rich cottony down that clothes them. To such perfection, indeed, has nature in them carried her mimetic art, that you would declare, upon beholding some insects, that they had robbed the trees of their leaves to form for themselves artificial wings, so exactly do they resemble them in their form, substance, and vascular structure; some representing green leaves, and others those that are dry and withered[11]. Nay, sometimes this mimicry is so exquisite, that you would mistake the whole insect for a portion of the branching spray of a tree[12]. No mean beauty in some plants arises from the fluting and punctuation of their stems and leaves, and a similar ornament conspicuously distinguishes numerous insects, which also imitate with multiform variety, as may particularly be seen in the caterpillars of many species of the butterfly tribe (PapilionidÆ), the spines and prickles which are given as a Noli me tangere armour to several vegetable productions.

In fishes the lucid scales of varied hue that cover and defend them are universally admired, and esteemed their peculiar ornament; but place a butterfly's wing under a microscope, that avenue to unseen glories in new worlds, and you will discover that nature has endowed the most numerous of the insect tribes with the same privilege, multiplying in them the forms[13], and diversifying the colouring of this kind of clothing beyond all parallel. The rich and velvet tints of the plumage of birds are not superior to what the curious observer may discover in a variety of Lepidoptera; and those many-coloured eyes which deck so gloriously the peacock's tail are imitated with success by one of our most common butterflies[14]. Feathers are thought to be peculiar to birds; but insects often imitate them in their antennÆ[15], wings[16], and even sometimes in the covering of their bodies[17].—We admire with reason the coats of quadrupeds, whether their skins be covered with pile, or wool, or fur; yet are not perhaps aware that a vast variety of insects are clothed with all these kinds of hair, but infinitely finer and more silky in texture, more brilliant and delicate in colour, and more variously shaded than what any other animals can pretend to.

In variegation insects certainly exceed every other class of animated beings. Nature, in her sportive mood, when painting them, sometimes imitates the clouds of heaven; at others, the meandering course of the rivers of the earth, or the undulations of their waters: many are veined like beautiful marbles; others have the semblance of a robe of the finest net-work thrown over them; some she blazons with heraldic insignia, giving them to bear in fields sable—azure—vert—gules—argent and or, fesses—bars—bends—crosses—crescents—stars, and even animals[18]. On many, taking her rule and compasses, she draws with precision mathematical figures; points, lines, angles, triangles[19], squares, and circles. On others she portrays, with mystic hand, what seem like hieroglyphic symbols, or inscribes them with the characters and letters of various languages, often very correctly formed[20]; and, what is more extraordinary, she has registered in others figures which correspond with several dates of the Christian era[21].

Nor has nature been lavish only in the apparel and ornament of these privileged tribes; in other respects she has been equally unsparing of her favours. To some she has given fins like those of fish, or a beak resembling that of birds[22]; to others horns, nearly the counterparts of those of various quadrupeds. The bull[23], the stag[24], the rhinoceros[25], and even the hitherto vainly sought for unicorn[26], have in this respect many representatives amongst insects. One is armed with tusks not unlike those of the elephant[27]; another is bristled with spines, as the porcupine and hedge-hog with quills[28]; a third is an armadillo in miniature; the disproportioned hind legs of the kangaroo give a most grotesque appearance to a fourth[29]; and the threatening head of the snake is found in a fifth[30]. It would, however, be endless to produce all the instances which occur of such imitations: and I shall only remark that, generally speaking, these arms and instruments in structure and finishing far exceed those which they resemble.

But further, insects not only mimic, in a manner infinitely various, every thing in nature, they may also with very little violence be regarded as symbolical of beings out of and above nature. The butterfly, adorned with every beauty and every grace, borne by radiant wings through the fields of ether, and extracting nectar from every flower, gives us some idea of the blessed inhabitants of happier worlds, of angels, and of the spirits of the just arrived at their state of perfection. Again, other insects seem emblematical of a different class of unearthly beings: when we behold some tremendous for the numerous horns and spines projecting in horrid array from their head or shoulders;—others for their threatening jaws of fearful length, and armed with cruel fangs: when we survey the dismal hue and demoniac air that distinguish others, the dens of darkness in which they live, the impurity of their food, their predatory habits and cruelty, the nets which they spread, and the pits which they sink to entrap the unwary, we can scarcely help regarding them as aptly symbolizing evil demons, the enemies of man, or of impure spirits for their vices and crimes driven from the regions of light into darkness and punishment[31].

The sight indeed of a well-stored cabinet of insects will bring before every beholder not conversant with them, forms in endless variety, which before he would not have thought it possible could exist in nature, resembling nothing that the other departments of the animal kingdom exhibit, and exceeding even the wildest fictions of the most fertile imagination. Besides prototypes of beauty and symmetry, there in miniature he will be amused to survey (for the most horrible creatures when deprived of the power of injury become sources of interest and objects of curiosity), to use the words of our great poet,

But the pleasures of a student of the science to which I am desirous of introducing you, are far from being confined to such as result from an examination of the exterior form and decorations of insects: for could these, endless as they seem, be exhausted, or, wonderful as they are, lose their interest, yet new sources, exuberant in amusement and instruction, may be opened, which will furnish an almost infinite fund for his curiosity to draw upon. The striking peculiarity and variety of structure which they exhibit in their instruments of nutrition, motion, and oviposition; in their organs of sensation, generation, and the great fountains of vitality,—indeed their whole system, anatomically considered, will open a world of wonders to you with which you will not soon be satiated, and during your survey of which you will at every step feel disposed to exclaim with the Roman naturalist—"In these beings so minute, and as it were such non-entities, what wisdom is displayed, what power, what unfathomable perfection[32]!" But even this will not bring you to the end of your pleasures: you must leave the dead to visit the living; you must behold insects when full of life and activity, engaged in their several employments, practising their various arts, pursuing their amours, and preparing habitations for their progeny: you must notice the laying and kind of their eggs; their wonderful metamorphoses; their instincts, whether they be solitary or gregarious; and the other miracles of their history—all of which will open to you a richer mine of amusement and instruction, I speak it without hesitation, than any other department of Natural History can furnish. A minute enumeration of these particulars would be here misplaced, and only forestall what will be detailed more at large hereafter; but a rapid glance at a very few of the most remarkable of them, may serve as a stimulus to excite your curiosity, and induce you to enter with greater eagerness into the wide field to which I shall conduct you.

The lord of the creation plumes himself upon his powers of invention, and is proud to enumerate the various useful arts and machines to which they have given birth, not aware that "He who teacheth man knowledge" has instructed these despised insects to anticipate him in many of them. The builders of Babel doubtless thought their invention of turning earth into artificial stone, a very happy discovery[33]; yet a little bee[34] had practised this art, using indeed a different process, on a small scale, and the white ants on a large one, ever since the world began. Man thinks that he stands unrivalled as an architect, and that his buildings are without a parallel among the works of the inferior orders of animals. He would be of a different opinion did he attend to the history of insects: he would find that many of them have been architects from time immemorial; that they have had their houses divided into various apartments, and containing staircases, gigantic arches, domes, colonnades, and the like; nay, that even tunnels are excavated by them so immense, compared with their own size, as to be twelve times bigger than that projected by Mr. Dodd to be carried under the Thames at Gravesend[35]. The modern fine lady, who prides herself on the lustre and beauty of the scarlet hangings which adorn the stately walls of her drawing-room, or the carpets that cover its floor, fancying that nothing so rich and splendid was ever seen before, and pitying her vulgar ancestors, who were doomed to unsightly white-wash and rushes, is ignorant all the while, that before she or her ancestors were in existence, and even before the boasted Tyrian dye was discovered, a little insect had known how to hang the walls of its cell with tapestry of a scarlet more brilliant than any her rooms can exhibit[36]; and that others daily weave silken carpets, both in tissue and texture infinitely superior to those she so much admires. No female ornament is more prized and costly than lace, the invention and fabrication of which seems the exclusive claim of the softer sex. But even here they have been anticipated by these little industrious creatures, who often defend their helpless chrysalis, by a most singular covering, and as beautiful as singular, of lace[37]. Other arts have been equally forestalled by these creatures. What vast importance is attached to the invention of paper! For near six thousand years one of our commonest insects has known how to make and apply it to its purposes[38]; and even pasteboard, superior in substance and polish to any we can produce, is manufactured by another[39]. We imagine that nothing short of human intellect can be equal to the construction of a diving-bell or an air-pump—yet a spider is in the daily habit of using the one, and, what is more, one exactly similar in principle to ours, but more ingeniously contrived; by means of which she resides unwetted in the bosom of the water, and procures the necessary supplies of air by a much more simple process than our alternating buckets[40]—and the caterpillar of a little moth knows how to imitate the other, producing a vacuum, when necessary for its purposes, without any piston besides its own body[41]. If we think with wonder of the populous cities which have employed the united labours of man for many ages to bring them to their full extent, what shall we say to the white ants, which require only a few months to build a metropolis capable of containing an infinitely greater number of inhabitants than even imperial Nineveh, Babylon, Rome, or Pekin, in all their glory?

That insects should thus have forestalled us in our inventions ought to urge us to pay a closer attention to them and their ways than we have hitherto done, since it is not at all improbable that the result would be many useful hints for the improvement of our arts and manufactures, and perhaps for some beneficial discoveries. The painter might thus probably be furnished with more brilliant pigments, the dyer with more delicate tints, and the artisan with a new and improved set of tools. In this last respect insects deserve particular notice. All their operations are performed with admirable precision and dexterity; and though they do not usually vary the mode, yet that mode is always the best that can be conceived for attaining the end in view. The instruments also with which they are provided are no less wonderful and various than the operations themselves. They have their saws, and files, and augers, and gimlets, and knives, and lancets, and scissors, and forceps, with many other similar implements; several of which act in more than one capacity, and with a complex and alternate motion to which we have not yet attained in the use of our tools. Nor is the fact so extraordinary as it may seem at first, since "He who is wise in heart and wonderful in working" is the inventor and fabricator of the apparatus of insects; which may be considered as a set of miniature patterns drawn for our use by a Divine hand. I shall hereafter give you a more detailed account of some of the most striking of these instruments; and if you study insects in this view, you will be well repaid for all the labour and attention you bestow upon them.

But a more important species of instruction than any hitherto enumerated may be derived from entomological pursuits. If we attend to the history and manners of insects, they will furnish us with many useful lessons in Ethics, and from them we may learn to improve ourselves in various virtues. We have indeed the inspired authority of the wisest of mankind for studying them in this view, since he himself wrote a treatise upon them, and sends his sluggard to one for a lesson of wisdom[42]. And if we value diligence and indefatigable industry; judgement, prudence, and foresight; economy and frugality; if we look upon modesty and diffidence as female ornaments; if we revere parental affection—of all these, and many more virtues, insects in their various instincts exhibit several striking examples, as you will see in the course of our correspondence.

With respect to religious instruction insects are far from unprofitable; indeed in this view Entomology seems to possess peculiar advantages above every other branch of Natural History. In the larger animals, though we admire the consummate art and wisdom manifested in their structure, and adore that Almighty power and goodness which by a wonderful machinery, kept in motion by the constant action and re-action of the great positive and negative powers of Nature, maintains in full force the circulations necessary to life, perception, and enjoyment; yet as there seems no disproportion between the objects and the different operations that are going on in them, and we see that they afford sufficient space for the play of their systems, we do not experience the same sensations of wonder and astonishment that strike us when we behold similar operations carried on without interruption in animals scarcely visible to the naked eye. That creatures, which in the scale of being are next to non-entities, should be elaborated with so much art and contrivance, have such a number of parts both internal and external, all so highly finished and each so nicely calculated to answer its end; that they should include in this evanescent form such a variety of organs of perception and instruments of motion, exceeding in number and peculiarity of structure those of other animals; that their nervous and respiratory systems should be so complex, their secretory and digestive vessels so various and singular, their parts of generation so clearly developed, and that these minims of nature should be endowed with instincts in many cases superior to all our boasted powers of intellect—truly these wonders and miracles declare to every one who attends to the subject, "The hand that made us is divine." We are the work of a Being infinite in power, in wisdom, and in goodness.

But no religious doctrine is more strongly established by the history of insects than that of a superintending Providence. That of the innumerable species of these beings, many of them beyond conception fragile and exposed to dangers and enemies without end, no link should be lost from the chain, but all be maintained in those relative proportions necessary for the general good of the system; that if one species for a while preponderate, and instead of preserving seem to destroy, yet counterchecks should at the same time be provided to reduce it within its due limits; and further, that the operations of insects should be so directed and overruled as to effect the purposes for which they were created and never exceed their commission: nothing can furnish a stronger proof than this, that an unseen hand holds the reins, now permitting one to prevail and now another, as shall best promote certain wise ends; and saying to each, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further."

So complex is this mundane system, and so incessant the conflict between its component parts, an observation which holds good particularly with regard to insects, that if instead of being under such control it were left to the agency of blind chance, the whole must inevitably soon be deranged and go to ruin. Insects, in truth, are a book in which whoever reads under proper impressions cannot avoid looking from the effect to the cause, and acknowledging his eternal power and godhead thus wonderfully displayed and irrefragably demonstrated: and whoever beholds these works with the eyes of the body, must be blind indeed if he cannot, and perverse indeed if he will not, with the eye of the soul behold in all his glory the Almighty Workman, and feel disposed, with every power of his nature, to praise and magnify

And now having led you to the vestibule of an august temple, which in its inmost sanctuary exhibits enshrined in glory the symbols of the Divine Presence, I should invite you to enter and give a tongue to the Hallelujahs, which every creature in its place, by working his will with all its faculties, pours forth to its great Creator: but I must first endeavour to remove, as I trust I shall effectually, those objections to the study of these interesting beings which I alluded to in the outset of this letter, and this shall be the aim of my next address.

I am, &c.